The Bourne Legacy

THE BOURNE LEGACY is a sequel with the uphill task of replacing its title character. Not recasting, like James Bond, but creating a new hero, like when Valerie Harper got fired from Valerie and they brought in Sandy Duncan as her sister-in-law. I actually think that’s more interesting than if they just made another Matt Damon BOURNE. I liked those movies but I think they’re pretty repetitive, and they wrapped up that storyline anyway. Enough of that, I say. But I’m surprised the studio thought there were enough people like me to justify making this movie.

(And I thought they were wrong, based on the reviews I’d heard. I know at least a couple of you guys hated it, and I assumed not many went to see it. But I just looked it up and it turns out it made more money than they expected it to and they might do another one.)
Amnesiac superspy Jason Bourne was created in a secret CIA program called Treadwell. After he figured out his identity, established supremacy and gave them an ultimatum he gave Treadwell the Bourne Exposure. Now the intelligence community powers that be (Edward Norton) are flipping their wigs ’cause they worry that those fuckups could endanger better programs, like this one called Outcome which Aaron Cross (Jeremy Renner) is a part of.

When the movie begins, Cross is at a remote Alaskan black ops training ground, swimming through icy water, climbing mountains, leaping across chasms, fighting wolves (he handles it better, but less poetic, than the guy in THE GREY), surviving alone, stopping to take pills and shoot up. He eventually meets up with another agent played by Oscar Isaac. I didn’t know he was gonna be in the movie, and he’s so perfect because just like in DRIVE and SUCKER PUNCH you can read him different ways, he could be a threat or a great help. Are they bonding or is this a test? Perfect casting to crank up the paranoia early on. They stay in a cabin (like HANNA or THE AMERICAN – assassins always hide out in remote icy cabins), Cross asks too many questions, gets no clear answers, then headquarters tries to kill them. Doesn’t kill Cross.

So, like Bourne, Cross is on the run and trying to find answers. But he hasn’t forgotten who he is, he just hasn’t been told what they’re doing to him. Norton is his antagonist, but he does it from far away, setting up a “crisis suite,” barking orders at a command center full of experts looking through files, watching security feeds, making phone calls, raising their hand if they need a higher security clearance.

Meanwhile there’s this lab where Dr. Marta Shearing (Rachel Weisz) works. They do something with the Outcome subjects, doing check ups on them, we’re not sure what else. Through flashbacks we know she’s examined Cross before. Then one day one of her colleagues locks the doors and starts shooting everybody. I’m glad I watched it before the most recent mass-shooting incident that’s in the news, because that would’ve made it more painful. It’s a harrowing sequence taking advantage of our knowledge and fears of real life “guy suddenly snaps” workplace shootings, plus the old conspiracy theorist’s favorite that they could be mind controlled government hits. I gotta question the sanity of people when they suggest that in real life, but of course in the world of BOURNE it makes perfect sense.

We follow Weisz as she escapes this and deals with the aftermath. I like when movies go off on tangents and pull me in enough that I forget we’ve gotten away from the other thing. So I was off guard when the storylines suddenly met up. Good stuff.

Here’s an interesting character detail about Cross: when he uses a wolf as a decoy to escape from a drone he takes a moment to tell the wolf, “You shoulda left me alone.” Like he genuinely feels kinda bad about it. Or he feels he has to justify himself to the wolf. Look pal, I was just gonna get blown up but you brought this upon yourself.

Director Tony MICHAEL CLAYTON Gilroy – who was a writer on the others, but had some disagreements with sequelist Paul Greengrass and star Matt Damon – seems to have made a conscious effort to shoot it as if purposely directed by somebody instead of Greengrass’s “oh shit, there’s a guy running and we happen to have a couple handheld cameras here!” approach. He assumes people will still recognize it as BOURNE because of all the scenes of character actors barking out orders in rooms full of people looking at different files and security camera feeds on different computer screens. I appreciate the slightly more MISSION:IMPOSSIBLEish approach, where the camera holds still for a motorcycle flip or shows a parkour guy run up a house in one shot, though some fights still have pretty quick cuts and closer-than-I’d-like cameras.

Near the beginning they have Paddy Considine as a reporter for The Guardian, and I thought “oh cool, I didn’t know Paddy Considine was gonna be in this,” but then he immediately gets shot, and I thought “oh yeah, that was footage from THE BOURNE ULTIMATUM, I forgot he was in that.” There are a bunch of small appearances by great character actors: David Strathairn, Albert Finney, Scott Glenn, Stacy Keach. Joan Allen (DEATH RACE, FACE/OFF) returns as Pamela Landy, but I bet she filmed her part in a day or two. It feels a little forced.

In my opinion that’s the one thing holding the movie back a little bit is how much they put into tying it in with the previous movies. They overlap it with ULTIMATUM, showing that Norton’s character was the one pulling the strings, calling for the journalist to be killed. They have characters looking at Bourne’s file, they show his photo and talk about him on the news, and in one part that made logical sense but still made me laugh Cross notices where Bourne carved his name into the rafters of the cabin hideout. Bourne was here! I know this is all for those people who weren’t as easily sold on a new main character as I was, but I doubt it helped. It just draws attention to Damon’s non-participation. A couple times it felt like one of those DVD extras, like the one on xXx where they killed off Xander Cage. I kept expecting Matt Damon’s stunt double to play the back of his head.

Directationally it doesn’t feel nearly as confident as MICHAEL CLAYTON, but when it gets rolling it does have tastes of that thick tension and dramatic complexity. The new shit is much more compelling than the Bourne shit. Cross is basically a junkie, spending the whole movie trying to get his “chems,” and when he first saves Marta he seems kind of crazed, more like an abductor than a rescuer. Just like he didn’t know what to make of Oscar Isaac, she has no idea if she can trust him, and vice versa (although this time the audience has a pretty good idea they’re both clean).

I think their relationship is interesting in unexpected ways. They’re both discarded pawns of a conspiracy between intelligence agencies, military units, scientific researchers and pharmaceutical companies. He needs her because she’s the closest inside he can get, she needs him because he’s the only person willing and able to stop the people who plan to blow her head off. She’s a good person at heart but she’s used her talents for this morally questionable thing and he guilts her about it. She justifies herself on the basis of ignorance, or greater good. “I was there for science!” But is that enough? She must not be sure.

I like that the Outcome agents keep their drugs in a container inside their dogtags. It’s a good visual representation of their predicament: the symbol of their enlistment is also the vessel of their dependency.

(How’s that for a high falutin sentence? God only knows what the rest of 2013 will bring.)

There’s alot of talk about Cross being amazing and beating previous records and stuff, and he does some impressive action feats, but they don’t really give him super powers or anything. They just work hard at creating a plausible sounding science behind how this action hero was created. Maybe if there’s a BOURNE CONTINUATION he’ll start doing Wolverine shit. (If there’s not then I guess this will be a mostly forgotten footnote, like xXx STATE OF THE UNION or U.S. MARSHALS.)

THE BOURNE LEGACY may be only the third best Jeremy Renner action franchise of 2012, but it’s its second best UNIVERSAL SOLDIER movie. I enjoyed it.

VERN has been reviewing movies since 1999 and is the author of the books SEAGALOGY: A STUDY OF THE ASS-KICKING FILMS OF STEVEN SEAGAL, YIPPEE KI-YAY MOVIEGOER!: WRITINGS ON BRUCE WILLIS, BADASS CINEMA AND OTHER IMPORTANT TOPICS and NIKETOWN: A NOVEL. His horror-action novel WORM ON A HOOK will arrive later this year.

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83 Responses to “The Bourne Legacy”

I didn’t think it was that bad either. Renner’s great, I like Weisz and there’s some good action. However, the story doesn’t really GO anywhere. At a certain point, the two of them are on the run, and they stay that way for the rest of the movie and are only concerned with treating Cross’ condition, while everything that was accomplished by the end of the last movie is undone(Strathairn gets away with it, Landy is branded a traitor, Finney is killed), which you’d think is a reason why Bourne WOULDN’T be done with all this, but if Damon stays out of it, the character’s just going to look like a quitter.

Vern, I believe I’m the yin to your yang on this one. I agree with all the points you make, it’s just that the degrees to which I agree cause me to put this more in the negative column. I felt the adherence to previous films dragged this sucker down way more than you did, and conversely hurt the parts that you and I agree worked: anything dealing with Alex Cross and Dr. Shearing, a.k.a. FLOWERS FOR ALGERBOURNE.

Seriously, I loved the wacked out notion of the pills boasting Cross’s intelligence and prowess, and the panic he felt knowing that his smarts would leave him has soon as the blues disappeared. Conversely, I really wasn’t drawn into all the command center side stories that grew to feel more like the trunk of the tree than a interesting branch. Your hero shouldn’t feel tangential to the main story, is what I’m trying to say. I really wanted the suits to drop away, and focus on our hero, his magic pills, and the woman who cures him.

I thought this was decent, but the lack of a proper, one-on-one, mano-a-mano, duel-to-the-death, man-to-man (etc) climax in favour of a (SPOILER-SPOILER-SPOILER) CG motorbike chase was a bit of a cheat. I’d watch another one, though.

I liked it, though it definitely wasn’t flawless. I woulda preferred a more…climactic showdown between Cross and the yakuza dude from Predators(I mean, sure, I like motorcycle chases, but I woulda preferred an actual physical showdown), I wasn’t thrilled with them basically undoing ALL the closure from the last Bourne movie, and it was a little longer than need be, but I still enjoyed it. And Renner was suitably badass(his fighting style seems a bit more…brutal and direct than Bourne’s was, looked to use a little Filipino martial arts in the techniques), so I wouldn’t mind seeing another one with him, perhaps a little leaner and more focused, since then they don’t have to worry about overlapping it with Damon’s Bourne movies or spend time introducing us to Cross and what he is. and the program he was in and such.

**. . . another agent played by Oscar Isaac. I didn’t know he was gonna be in the movie, and he’s so perfect because just like in DRIVE and SUCKER PUNCH you can read him different ways, he could be a threat or a great help. Are they bonding or is this a test? Perfect casting to crank up the paranoia early on.**

For the 20th time, you gotta check out AGORA. You can plug in ^these exact words^ for Oscar Isaac’s character in that one, especially the early post-battle scene where you don’t know whether he’s gonna betray his classmates or turn his sword on those who threaten them, whether he’s gonna go lust-crazy-vengeful over Hypatia or play it cool, whether he’ll maintain his scientifical-rational beliefs or turn to violent uber-Christianity.
Isaac was also great in a similar but more low-key way in BODY OF LIES, but you already knew that.

Shit, I didn’t know he was in this either. We can share the Oscar Isaac appreciation/fanboyism, Vern, even if it was my thing first, but don’t be stealing my penchant for pseudo-poetic pedantry; that’s definitely my thing, goddammit. For these reasons — the casting, and because I *must* outdo Vern’s “high falutin sentence” in a BOU4NE LEGACY review — it is time for me to bump this up on the to-watch list.

Did anyone else think Oscar Isaac might have lived? He definitely acts more “in the know” than Cross, and the way they shot that scene would allow for him to run off to safety when the camera moves away from the cabin.

My favorite badass moment in this was Cross taking out the security guards in the basement of the pharma factory. Just a real quick and mean assbeating. I also loved the single-shot you mention of him parkouring up the side of the house.

There were moments in this where Cross seemed like way less of a superman than Bourne, and then there were scenes like that where he seemed like Bourne Jr. I wasn’t sure if this inconsistency was intentional, or maybe I was perceiving it when it wasn’t there. The big climactic chase was a let-down for me. Too much post-action framing and cutting, and I hated that they gave LARX a cool setup (“Treadstone without the inconsistency” or whatever) and had him taken out with a stray Rachel Weisz kick. I mean Rachel Weisz is cool and all but like Jam and DKS said, I was really hoping the chase was building to a brutal hand-to-hand showdown between Larx and Cross.

I found the movie a little generic compared to the strong Tony Gilroy flavor of Michael Clayton, but I still dug aspects of it. Gilroy’s got a knack for bureaucratic dialogue.

I really enjoyed this movie for 99% of the running time, but then when it got to the end, I was kind of shocked. This movie didn’t have a 3rd act! It literally ends at the end of the second act of the story. Nothing gets resolved. I’m sure they wanted to leave it open for future installments, but this is ridiculous. At least in the previous films they would defeat the main villain. They couldn’t even be bothered with that in this one. I am seriously baffled at this choice. Vern, I’m surprised you weren’t bothered by this.

I liked this better than some of the other BOURNE movies. I’m just a sucker for that getting the best character actors in the world thing, seeing Stacy Keach back on the big screen just made my heart melt and I love anything with Rachel Weisz. I say bring on some more, maybe next time they can cast Tom Berenger.

I liked this one but was also pissed that it unraveled the resolution of the previous three films. They did not have to go there to show that there were more programs to cover up. I would love to see a sequel that fixes that mess, with or without Damon’s involvement. And they don’t need to go killing The doctor, either. Dead girlfriend’s been done already. Find another reason for Renner to o after the Feds. (I like the idea of the other super soldier still being alive.)

On OT topic, I wonder if Alex Cross would have been better of Tyler Perry had done it as Medea. Or Matthew Fox played it as Jack from Lost. It at least would have been more interesting.

” It’s a harrowing sequence taking advantage of our knowledge and fears of real life “guy suddenly snaps” workplace shootings, plus the old conspiracy theorist’s favorite that they could be mind controlled government hits. I gotta question the sanity of people when they suggest that in real life, but of course in the world of BOURNE it makes perfect sense.”

wow, I’m surprised the movie goes there, but you’d be surprised at how many people believe that shit for real, conspiracy theorists have been breeding like cockroaches on the internet these last few years, they’re everywhere!

“A couple times it felt like one of those DVD extras, like the one on xXx where they killed off Xander Cage. I kept expecting Matt Damon’s stunt double to play the back of his head.”

Is there anyone else involved in as many franchises (or potential franchises) right now than Renner? This, MISSION IMPOSSIBLE, THE AVENGERS(and any potential solo movies he could cameo in), HANSEL AND GRETEL…

The heart warming journey of a man too retarded for even the military without his medicine, and the doctor who won’t give up on him. Movie seemed like the first third of a regular bourne movie stretched into two hours, with the two action scenes in the movie (escaping from the house and then the pharmaceutical place at the end) just going on forever to fill the time. I thought that bike chase was never going to end, then it did and suddenly the whole movie was over. I don’t even know what the point of this thing was, was I supposed to be excitedly anticipating Edward Norton being brought to justice for that wolf killed by a drone strike in a future movie?

Griff, I’d say weird, but in a good way. Sometimes the system works, and an actor for working for decades gets his or her due. For Renner I think the breaking point was THE HURT LOCKER; not just because he was so good in that flick (but he was) but also because it built on an onscreen persona he’d been developing for years: the AWOL solider who does what he does despite the system (SWAT; 28 WEEKS LATER, etc.). All these movies gave people a sense of how they could use him in future films, and he took off from there.

I was absolutely bothered by the ending, as were most people who’ve seen it I think. Other than that I pretty much agree with Vern on most counts. But then I posted a review of this one in the forums when it came out, I won’t start quoting that again. Still thought it was overall a good movie with a few standout scenes though. Definitely better than “Skyfall”.

And Norton gets my vote for “most bafflingly miscast actor of 2013”. I just do not see how could ever have thought it would be a good idea to cast Worm from “Rounders” in the role that he has. I don’t care HOW good an actor you are, there’s some parts that you just aren’t suited for. Seeing Norton play a cut down version of Brian Cox’s character from the first two “Bourne” movies was like… seeing Christina Ricci try to play the T-1000 or something.

Although considering the T-1000 can look like pretty much anything it chooses, that might have been the worst example I could possibly have chosen… I meant whatever Terminator was the one that Arnie played! (The T-800?)

I’m a fan of the Bourne films and feel that they have revitalised (and also probably overstimulated) action films of the last 10 years. I loved the way that ULTIMATUM leapt inside SUPREMACY and my favourite scene of any spy movie is either Bourne’s discussion with Pam Landy in SUPREMACY as he’s looking through a sniper scope or his patient silence as the CIA guy in Naples phones in to her in the same movie before Bourne thumps both him and the cop guarding him.

But I didn’t think that this was in the same league as that movie. As mentioned, it just kind of ends, and it can’t top Bourne’s window hopping in terms of action so it forgets to really have any (well, not much that you’re bothered about, although I enjoyed the sequence in the house). And it does undo what BOURNE ULTIMATUM did to end what with discrediting Landy, but I guess that’s what illegal covert assassin programs would do if they existed and were revealed to the public.

However…

Jeremy Renner is fantastic. Between his discussion of how Rachel Weisz refers to him in this (‘Five?!?! The NUMBER FIVE?!?!?’) and his description of his server jump in MI: GHOST PROTOCOL (‘I’m jumping into an oven!’), that guy can deliver a line with the kind of petty humour that other superspies forgo, and he has a unique identity (no pun intended) because of it. I woud watch another with him, but it really would have to pull itself together in terms of plot.

I still haven’t seen The Bourne Legacy yet, so I can’t comment on how good or bad it is, but I don’t think every Bourne movie needs some sort of epic showdown between the antagonist and protagonist. Maybe I’ll feel let down by the motorcycle chase scene too, but I can’t stand it when I’m watching a film and you can tell something was included to satisfy some checklist some exec came up with. I’m surprised how divided the opinions have been on this movie though. One of my friends didn’t even finish it, while one of my coworkers at DISH thought it was the best Bourne film yet. Since I’m a big fan of the franchise, I hope I fall into the latter camp. I had considered buying it the other day. But buying movies without seeing them first has gotten me too many movies that I’ll never watch again (I don’t even want to add up what I’ve spent on those). After finally realizing that I decided to change my habits and I started using DISH’s Blockbuster @Home to rent all my movies first. I get a ton of options with Blockbuster @Home, including thousands of titles streamed to my TV and PC and over 100,000 titles by mail. And the best part is, it saves me a lot of money on movies that I want to see, but probably regret buying.

So I wasn’t going to see this, but then my curiosity got the best of me and I checked it out. Honestly, for a completely superfluous sequel, it’s not bad. It was fine, I wasn’t completely un-entertained.

But I have to say, considering how much more dialed back Gilroy’s style is compared to Greengrass, I thought the action was way, way worse/less coherent than the Greengrass BOURNE films. For all the shit Greengrass gets about his shaky cam, it always looked to me like a lot of care was put into the editing. They chose shots that clearly illustrated the movement in the frame, and pieced them together in a logical sequence so you could easly see how A leads to B leads to C. Gilroy, on the other hand, doesn’t shake or zoom the camera so much, and doesn’t seem to cut quite as fast, yet the framing is too tight and the editing is unclear, and I found the action scenes to be mildly confusing eye sores.

Also, am I nuts, or was BOURNE LEGACY absurdly anti-climactic? Nothing really happens by the end; it just kinda glibly sets up a sequel that probably won’t happen. Obviously there is a big action scene, but otherwise not much resolution. All that the heroes have accomplished by the end is 1) Aaron is off the drugs and 2) they didn’t get killed. Unlike the other films, no corruption is exposes, none of the major villains are taken out, no new information is discovered about the programs. They just kinda temporarily get away after kicking one dude’s ass. I was a little dumbstruck when the credits started rolling; I was assuming we were going to get at least one more scene of them somehow exposing or confronting Edward Norton, or something.

I liked Renner enough in the role that I’d be down for another film with Aaron Cross. He was a nice contrast to Bourne; talkative, lively, inquisitive. He didn’t feel like a rehash. I’d really dig it if they got Damon back and Cross and Bourne teamed up in the next one, FAST & FURIOUS sequel style… but it sounds like if Damon returns to the franchise, they aren’t going to bring back Renner. Shame.

Dan Man— Oh dopey me to not check the numbers before reading the last rites for a possible sequel. The Bourne Legacy:
$125 million budget
$276 million gross theatrical (worldwide); 41% domestic / 59% foreign.
Factor in ancillary markets, and you’ve got a tidy profit margin. Greenlight numero dos, if you please.

You’re correct about Renner vis-a-vis Damon. Renner’s kind of hard to pin down as an actor (maybe a large part of his appeal), and it was something of a relief to watch him lighten the mood. Damon’s whole take on his character— the introspective, brooding, conflicted “who am I?” search for self— was tolerable enough for one movie, but I thought it was a bit much over the next two.

I got the impression that maybe Renner tore out a few pages from Guy Pearce’s Memento playbook as he approached making The Bourne Legacy, in the sense that even though his character has a great many unanswered questions, he just kind of propels himself forward (via improvisation & a neglect of fear) and lets the situation unfold as it may. Just a hunch.

Is this the first action movie where the hero literally falls asleep during the big finale? Considering how incredibly long the final chase was, I damn near laughed out loud when Renner channeled the home viewer and nodded off while Weisz had to handle the T-1000-esque assassin in a bike chase straight out of Return of the Jedi (and using ROTJ special effects, apparently).

Viewed as a real movie, it’s not very good. But as a goofy Gus Van Sant Psycho-like experiment or big budgeted, extremely overqualified fan fiction, this movie is amazing and I can’t believe it got made. Even as a money-making product it’s too weird and too un-crowdpleasing – who decided “let’s cross Bourne with Flowers for Algernon + Rosencrantz and Gildenstern are Dead and hope for the best!”? The movie’s shaggy and lopsided and weirdly paced. The ending is comically anticlimactic (when the strings of that Moby song came on, i was like “wait seriously, this is the end?”). But I’ll be damned if it didn’t work. The Oscar Isaac stuff is great, the fight scenes are good, Renner is different enough from Damon that it doesn’t feel like deja vu and plus he’s got great comic timing in a few scenes. And that workplace shooting scene may be the most harrowing, uncomfortable scene I’ve seen in a PG-13 summer movie in years.

Btw, I guess the general consensus is that people didn’t like Norton’s turn as the villain. I actually thought he was great – he’s not supposed to be imposing or threatening, and that’s what makes him imposing and threatening if that makes sense. He’s an armchair quarterback, a videogame-generation villain who (like the nerdy tech guy) isn’t any less dangerous just because he can push a button and kill you with a drone. Watch the way Corey Stoll’s character barely suppresses a grin when he asks his superiors if he can utilize the Asian assassin guy, like a kid on Christmas asking to open his toys early. I can’t wait to see a sequel involving these characters again (but hopefully they’ll leave this separate from the real Bourne franchise in the future)

I can see why people don´t like this one. It lacks the kinetic energy of the previous efforts and has a main character whose motivations aren´t as emphatic. I mean Bourne is kind of a tragic character who finds out he is an assassin and can´t really come to terms with it. Cross motivations was to get rid of his addiction and dependency of “the pills”, I guess?. I also never could separate the blue and the green and what they did, even though they explain it clearly. I think it is a symptom of the problems with this one. There is too much fluff. It is not entirely bad, it has a few good-to-great sequences, but as a follow up to the first three it doesn´t really hold up, especially if you watched all of them back to back as I did recently. The first six hours went by really quickly, but then came THE BOURNE LEGACY and put it to a halt.

What was great about THE BOURNE IDENTITY was not only that it was a well-paced grounded thriller. Matt Damon is surprisingly good in the role, making the character believable with his straight faced confusion. It was also I belive, the first espionage action thriller where you actually got the sense that the main character was well trained. I can´t think of any other action film. Certainly not James Bond.

The whole idea to do this film without Damon feels like a pretty cynical, bottom line-driven decision, and then everything about the actual film bears out that suspicion. Renner and Norton are like the Bourne film equivalent of the Dukes of Hazzard cousins, and there’s nothing fun, novel, or quirky about their characters, their competent but immediately forgettable performances, the scenery, or this story, which plays like it was written by some kind of automated Bourne sequel script generator algorithm. Seriously, do you remember one cool action scene or line of dialogue or fight or set piece or really compelling character from this movie? If so, you enjoyed this more and/or have a better memory than me. This is franchise milking at its most bleak and calculating.

Oscar Isaac would be Cooter.
Rachel Weisz would be Daisy Duke.
Stacy Keach would be Sheriff Rosco P.Coltrane.
And Scott Glenn would be Boss Hogg.
(Alas, no Uncle Jesse replacement that I could suss out).

I like where your head’s at, and agree about Matt Damon— if you take him out of the equation, it’s a whole different critter. I’m glad he’s back starring a new one, with Paul Greengrass directing. Should be a winner.

Larry, for whatever reason, Stacy Keach felt more like the Boss Hogg, but with me positing Renner and Norton as Coy and Vance, my analogy was fairly shaky out of the gate. In that spirit, I’m nominating Albert Finney as the Uncle Jesse on the grounds for no other reason than that he qualifies as most avuncular.

Aside from Renner (I am to date immune to his star power), I give these guys an “A” for casting and general efforts to switch this into the Bourne world. But everything else is so utterly bland and generic that it’s kind of sad how few narrative or visual or casting risks they took here–other than the foundational risk of doing this film without Damon, which is something, I guess.

Looking forward to the next one. I know Vern disapproves of the fighting (he is right as far as the ACR), but I think on the whole, these movies are a lot of fun and Bourne is incredibly involving for a guy we don’t really know and doesn’t really know himself.

Also, I did not realize that was Oscar Isaac until just now, since he’s a bigger deal now than he was then. The cabin encounter with him may qualify as one of the most novel, compelling, human moments in the film and actually does a commendable job of carrying the mantle of great “Treadstone operative sent to kill other, rogue Treadstone operative” cat and mouse shenanigans that have been a highlight of the prior trilogy. He did Clive Owen, Karl Urban and those other guys proud.

Wait, what the hell? I just actually re-read the Vern review (where he mentions Oscar Isaac), and I never realized he was also the husband from Drive. No wonder they cast this dude in Star Wars, he kicks ass.

I still like the scene where Weisz screams out his name to warn him about the people coming after him, but I’m a sucker for someone screaming out someone’s name in an intense, passionate way. I know, it can be trite, but it gets me.

Also, it’s interesting to me how these films are so identified with Paul Greengrass, even though Doug Liman did part 1 (if I recall correctly, part 1 was being set up in the rumor mill as a very troubled and perhaps even doomed film only to end up being a hit). I think part 1 is a very solid film and may even be my favorite of this series. I mean, it produced what is still my favorite line of the series, when Chris Cooper says to Brian Cox, “Why don’t you go book a conference room and see if you can talk him to death.” Had to be there, I guess.

In all fairness, Cameron created the strong warrior queen version of Ripley, that we all like so much. Not saying she was a weak wet blanket in part 1, but it was Cameron’s take on her, that made her an icon.

About BOURNE and Greengrass: It’s really weird. Kinda like how people forgot that the first EVIL DEAD was more dark and serious than its sequels, most people forgot that the first BOURNE was actually a well shot movie, without all the unwatchable camera and editing work.

Glad to know I’m not alone. The Greengrass camera work and low ACR don’t bother me quite so much as hardline Vern-ians, and I solidly enjoyed all three of the Damon bourne films. I enjoy the suspense, the globetrotting chase/mystery intrigue, the spycraft and MacGyver-esque improvising, the parkour elements, the consistently excellent casting and performances, and, of course, Damon’s Bourne. If this were just a straight up bust-em up movie with nothing else going for it, then I’d probably be harder on the ACR aspect. But, yeah, I think Liman’s work in part 1 is pretty ample evidence that you don’t need Greengrass to do a good Bourne. Greengrass and Damon must have seriously bonded–I’m thinking they’ve got matching tattoos.

I also don’t really get the appeal of Jeremy Renner as an action lead. He’s a little too compact and squirrel in look and deameanor to be an everyman or bigger-than-life leading man, but neither is he off-kilter enough to be an “inspired” choice. He’s just kind of there. Added to this is the fact that he has approximately the same age, build, complexion, hairstyle as Damon in film titled “Bourne” that everywhere just completely reeks of derivative hackery.

That seems to be the consensus in the reviews I’m reading. The 56% Rotten Tomatoes would suggest a polarized critical reaction, but I think that’s misleading. If you read the reviews, there seems to be a fairly consistent take-away that the film delivers all the standard Bourne tropes with relative effectiveness, but that the film doesn’t really do much to take the character in a new direction. I’m glad I’ve read the reviews, so I can go in with appropriately adjusted expectations.

Also, I’m re-watching Bourne Legacy, which is another exercise in re-calibrated expectations. I’m enjoying it this time around, just trying to treat it as it’s own thing within the Bourne universe without making too many direct comparisons to the original. Legacy still feels pretty grounded in the Bourne world, especially so when it comes to the intelligence bureaucrats and operatives, with Ed Norton stepping into the Chris Cooper/David Strathairn role. This one is a much slower burn than the typical Bourne movie, but I enjoy the slow, sparse build-up in Alaska and the time the film takes building things up before bringing Renner and Weisz together. You can definitely see the mash-up of Gilroy’s different storytelling sensibilities, mixing elements of the more action-driven Bourne type of conspiracy with the more character-driven thriller elements of a Michael Clayton.

I also have to apologize for crapping on Jeremy Renner, whom I’m really enjoying as Aaron Cross. He lacks that fresh-faced boy next door energy of Matt Damon and instead brings an entirely different intensity to this one, doing the whole off-kilter addict looking for a fix thing to good affect. I misjudged this one.

Felix, one of the other things people pointed out is that, in the earlier films where Bourne still didn’t know he was, we could just get swept away in the action and the chase of Bourne trying to figure out who he is while also improvising his way across the globe and outmaneuvering those sent to kill him. The first three films did a remarkable job of milking that premise. It’s a really cohesive and satisfying trilogy that feels like it has a beginning, middle, and end, and it’s all very briskly done. I’ve heard some people complain that Ultimatum just rehashes Supremacy, but I think all three films are outstanding, and Ultimatum offers a satisfying full-circle resolution to things, bringing Bourne back to where he became Bourne, restoring his memory, giving him closure in terms of facing the people who made him and giving them their reckoning.

The complaint I’m hearing with this new one is that it doesn’t successfully make that transition into a new trilogy that recognizes that Bourne is now a middle-aged guy with middle-aged guy problems and who knows who he is and has known for about a decade. Instead it kind of falls back on the need to generate some new “Who am I, really?” mystery into Bourne’s own past that he spends the film trying to unravel. That does seem like a copout and just a dumb movie, because it’s going to feel derivative and hacky trying to recapture that past magic in such a transparent way. That is what I liked about Legacy is that it never made any pretense that there was some greater mystery into Aaron Cross’s own past that he had to solve. It was a different kind of mystery adventure that wasn’t so navel gazey but still allowed for character development and humanity.

The other thing I’m hearing is that this new one is not doing much to develop the Bourne character or give us a reason to like or care about him. When he was young, on-the-run, and not sure of who he is, he’s a very sympathetic character even while being something of a blank slate. We excuse him being cypher-like, because that is part of the idea and part of the appeal: he’s forgotten who he is, and all he has right now is the procedural knowledge of how to improvise and survive. We’re figuring out he is at the same time he is.

But with this one, it’s been like 10 years since he regained his memory and closed out that chapter, and now he’s solidly a middle-aged guy. That state of affairs should force the storytellers to give us something fresh, to take the character to another level of development, and to give us new reasons to care about him. We need new stakes with similar gravity as in 1-3. We need a new mission that seems close to his heart and identifiable to the audience, not just a thin, retconny attempt to get the old lightning back in the bottle. Maybe he’s got a real family now that has been hurt or put at risk, or maybe he’s learned of a new evil Treadstone-like program that he feels morally compelled to intervene in.

Either that or we need this film to just be very transparent that it’s not trying to take the character to deeper places but is instead a stand-alone spy mission type movie: Bourne is working as a private contractor to solve a mystery or do some crazy mission. Or he’s mentoring or leading mercs or trainees. The government brings him in on a one-off mission that he agrees to do for some compelling reason (to protect his country, or maybe he’s just hard up for money). Some solid one-off premise with a clear villain and mission, some good set pieces, and maybe a plot twist here or there.

The point is, the film can’t just trade on the same “Bourne’s got to unravel a mystery about his past and outrun his former employer” premise and pretend that this premise is going to have the same potency and resonance as before. It’s either got to find some new way to invest Bourne’s mission with incredible personal stakes, or it’s got to be clear that it’s a stand-alone, self-contained adventure that has no pretense at unraveling his shadowy past. We know that Damon and Greengrass can execute the standard Bourne tropes (globetrotting, cat and mouse, parkour-y stuff, close quarters hand-to-hand combat, improvisation, chases and crashes). But there has to be a solid and engaging reason why he’s doing all that shit. The premise has to be solid, and there can’t be a free lunch as far as us pretending this still 20-something, befuddled Bourne (I know he was in his 30s in part 1, but he looked mid-20s). It’s like the 40 year-old single guy hanging out at the bar picking up chicks like he’s in college. It’s sad. He should have aged out.

Anyway, so I’m going to go into this film knowing it’s not going to deliver deeper layers of character development. I’m going to go for the standard Bourne beats, the nostalgia, and Tommy Lee Jones’s crusty scenery-chewing. Some returning members, some new members, all the standard hits being played: It’s the Guns N Roses reunion tour of cinema.

Rock on, Fred. I think another thing is that I guess they feel the need to be topical and tie this into social media and cyber stuff and Snowden. I gather that is Greengrass’s attempt to make this feel topical or “about something bigger,” but I disagree there, too. Sure, it needs to feel like it’s believable for our times, but it doesn’t need to feel like it’s chasing tech trends and buzz words. Take some risks. Tell new stories!!! That’s one of the things I’m appreciating about Legacy, is that they new they couldn’t just recast Bourne at that point, and they new they couldn’t make the film too too rehash-y of the Jason Bourne journey, and this forced them to tell a different story that is at home in the Bourne world but going to some different narrative places.

Agree with your thoughts, Skani. The new film also drops the ball with regards to great fight scenes. The Shaky Cam isn’t TAKEN 2 or TAKEN 3 bad, but don’t expect anything as good as the Bourne vs Desh fight in ULTIMATIUM.

It’s too bad because I know one person (me) who was pretty excited for Justin Lin’s Aaron Cross movie. They went the commercial route and made the sequel that more people wanted to see, but so far I have not talked to a single person who wasn’t completely bummed out by it, and the positive reviews have been about as luke as warm can get.

I really thought those guys wouldn’t come back to it without a cool idea for how it could be done different, but everybody seems to think it’s exactly like the last one, which to me blurs together with the one before that.

I will give it a shot on video though. Since I liked LEGACY more than everybody else maybe the same will be true of this one.

What really drags the film down is that there isn’t a person we can relate to or can humanize Bourne (Like Marie or Pamela Landy in the Trilogy).

Alicia Vikander plays an ambitious CIA Cyberops Officer. Her character has potential. A shifty devious spy who’s loyalties seem to shift according to what’s best for her. But Vikander plays her so robotically. Like Matt Damon she only has two or three expressions in the entire film.

I still recommend you catch it Vern. Though its definitely the worst of the Bourne films so far.

P.S- I saw Jackie Chan’s SKIPTRACE last week. I’ll be happy to answer any queries you have regarding it.

Yes, the Bourne-Desh fight was epic. Just finished the Legacy re-watch, and I can now confirm my above sentiment: I badly misjudged the film on the first watch. I just couldn’t let it be anything other than a second-rate, audience-insulting, franchise-milking cash grab. Of course, from a business standpoint, it clearly was a franchise-milking cash-grab, but Tony Gilroy and co. brought the goods and I think did about as perfect as a job as you can imagine of weaving this film into the Bourne world while making it thoroughly his own. There is nothing in any previous Bourne film like that going postal scene in the research lab or the scene where the “clinical psychologist” comes to visit Rachel Weisz. There is some genuine terror there. Nothing like the Alaskan leg of the film or that beautiful set piece at the pharmaceutical factory with all the little factory workers shambling out in their pink scrubs. Cross has a real pathos and humanity. This is definitely worth the re-watch.

Sternshein- Depends on what you are expecting. It’s basically a Rush Hour movie with Johnny Knoxsville. It has the usual Jackie stunt stuff with the Credits making scene. HK Comedians Richard Ng and Eric Tsang have bit roles in this.

It’s harmless stuff and Renny Harlin is a competent enough Director. The Positives? The Mongolian and China landscape shots are incredible to look at. Jackie does a Cover version of an Adele song. The action is easy to follow as well (though nothing noteworthy).

Aaron Cross is simply not as compelling of a character as Bourne. Bourne is a man struggling to cope with his memories and past as an assassin. Matt Damon with his earnestness is perfect for the role . If you´d ask me what Cross is about, I could not tell you. It is not Renners fault. I think the character is too underwritten or underdeveloped to stand out.

LEGACY may have some good-to-great sequences, but it mostly feels like a cynical cash crab to keep the franchise alive and fresh in the audiences consciousness until they could get Damon back. And now that they have I feel more excitement about it.

I might be the only person in the world who went to see JASON BOURNE for Julia Stiles. There’s something about the way she played Nicky that always fascinated me. She does a lot with very, very (very, very, very, very) little. She basically spent the original trilogy as a low-level bad guy, yet you get the sense that she sympathizes with Bourne while also being completely terrified of him. She’s an intelligence professional so she does her fucking job without complaint but I love how she clearly never wants to be there. This is not what she signed on. Her reticence gives the audience a different set of eyes to see through which gives us a different way of looking at Bourne. She’s hardly an innocent/ignorant bystander, which make her uniquely capable of recognizing how fucking crazy and dangerous the proceedings are. Nine out of ten other franchises would have turned her into a love interest, but they kept her in this weird in-between zone of hostage/accomplice. It’s an interesting dynamic that always made me want to see that character more, and it looked like the new one gave her a more prominent role.

So of course the only thing they could think of to do with her character is to SPOILER fridge her. I knew just from the trailer shot of her on the back of that motorcycle that there was about a 1 in 20 chance that she would survive the first act, and if anything those odds were generous. Sure enough, she showed up, exposited, provided Bourne with both his MacGuffin and his manly motivation, and exited the screenplay as dependably as clockwork. I can’t say I was surprised, but still. Nicky was an interesting and largely unsung character. She deserved better.

I’m going to have to give these another go, I couldn’t get into any of the Bourne movies I tried to watch (the first two) so I’ve been that odd man out with everyone gushing over how great they are and I can’t join in. Since I pulled the stick out of my ass with the Marvel Studio movies I don’t see why I shouldn’t at least try for these.

Felix: You saying SKIPTRACE is basically a RUSH HOUR movie (and thus also a SHANGHAI NOON/KNIGHT movie) kind of lowers my expectations even more. Was hoping the combination of Renny Harlin’s crazy sensibilities and a Jackie Chan movie (even old Jackie) would make for something more interesting maybe. From what I can ascertain you’re saying it is an okay(ish for die hard fans like me but technically not ‘good’ ala CZ12 and DRAGON BLADE). I’ve started lowering my expectations to: ‘If it is better than AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 DAYS (which I know many fans love for some reason) and SPY NEXT DOOR I’m okay (like I did with CZ12 and DRAGON BLADE), makes me all the more thankful for LITTLE BIG SOLDIER and his cameo in TWIN EFFECT (aka VAMPIRE EFFECT). I seem to be one of the few who are digging ‘Dramatic-turn’ Jackie (KARATE KID, POLICE STORY 2013: LOCKDOWN) so here’s hoping that Mr. Hit-and-Miss Martin Campbell gets a good or decent one out of him with The Foreigner.

I can’t get into them at all. Matt Damon comes across as a tool to me and nothing in those movies ever engages me be it the action setpieces, characters or repetitive narrative. It also feels like once you’ve seen one you’ve seem them all. MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE it definitely is not.

Shoot, I hear what your saying, but I have to disagree that Aaron Cross is less-well-developed character than Bourne. Keeping in mind that Legacy is the first (and perhaps only) Aaron Cross film, by what criterion is a less-developed character than Jason Bourne in Bourne 1 (or even up to the present). Bourne is a total cypher whose defining feature is that he runs, kills, improvises, says relatively little, and has no enduring emotional-relational connection to anyone except Marie and, to a lesser extent, Pamela Landy. He’s practically a serial killer. Hell, he is a serial killer. In contrast, Cross delivers a great deal of conflict and pathos and has a decidedly different motivation from Bourne’s. I agree that Renner is not as objectively Boy-Next-Door handsome and charming as Damon, which is why he’s generally consigned to being the also-ran wingman supporting character, whether it’s Mission Impossible, Avengers, or the Town. It’s also what makes him such and interesting choice of successor: he’s more squirelly, off-kilter, and decidedly not that archetypal golden boy that is Damon (or Affleck in the Town). And Legacy presses all the way into this by going the additional mile of revealing him initially as drug dependent and then as low-IQ (pre-chems) and then as (temporarily) sickly. That’s all decidedly un-Bourne in many respects, and it’s that weird combination of him having physical similarity to Bourne and him doing Bourne-like stuff while also seeming not quite qualified to carry the Bourne mantle by birthright. He got into the program as a result of a mistake: He’s not truly qualified to be a Bourne, which is a probably unintentional self-referential meta-commentary on Renner’s own casting: the film is leaning into the fact that Renner (Cross) does not measure up to Damon (Bourne) in terms of objective stats or charisma, but it’s brilliant, because it makes Cross an interesting and unique variation on the Bourne archetype.

I will concede that Legacy is generally a quieter, more staid, slow-burn film than the others in the series. It’s clearly a Tony Gilroy joint, and he’s not trying to imitate the Greengrass tone and feel. It’s far more Bourne 1 meets Michael Clayton than it is Greengrass-vintage Bourne.

Also, Felix, that Slashfilm review is solid. I have not seen Jason Bourne yet (I don’t mind the spoilers), but I feel at least somewhat inoculated by reviews like this one, so I can take the glass-half-full view on this film.

I also enjoyed this piece which defends Bourne 1 as the best in the series.

The Bourne Identity was a character-driven indie with some action. The sequels were the reverse.

Interesting, because many regard Supremacy as the best in the series, while the Slashfilm piece takes the position that Ultimatum is the best. I think 1-3 are all outstanding, though I do sometimes resent the fact that they are so identified with Greengrass, which seems to be reinforced by Damon’s repeated insistence that Greengrass’s involvement is a deal-breaker for any future Bourne films. I really enjoy Bourne 2-3, but I thought 1 and 4 were also very well-done in their own right. Based on reviews around this new one, I’m think that Greengrass has lost his way in the post-amnesia Bourne-verse. He’s out of inspired stories to tell and refuses to rethink some of this templated assumptions about what a Bourne film needs. T

he old template is worn-out. He needs to find some new creative wells instead of going back to the same old ones. This is what made films like Rocky Balboa and Rambo IV work. They weren’t afraid to go in totally new directions. Compare Rocky Balboa to say Rocky IV: Balboa is almost a total repudiation of the Rocky IV demigod approach to the character. Future Bourne films don’t need to go that far, but Greengrass needs to shake off past assumptions and explore some new vistas, as per Fred’s comment above.

I think that’s right, Felix. If I recall correctly, much of Ultimatum (Bourne 3!) ends up taking mitplace prior to the final scene of Supremacy (Bourne 2)! My guess is that this was more of a retcon-type conceit that didn’t emerge until after the decision to do a third one, because an entirely U.S.-based Bourne 3 would have felt too small and constrained for a series whose hallmark and charm is the whole globetrotting “Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego?” shtick (as with Indiana Jones or Bond). What’s extra interesting is that Bourne 4 essentially takes place at the same time, so it’s actually three different films all covering roughly the same period in the timeline.

Call it fan service or whatever you like, but I personally would enjoy seeing Damon and Renner team up in the same world. The characters are obviously very similar but also very unique, and I think they’d have good chemistry, and it would bring a legitimately new angle to the series. I’ll concede in advance that it could also be a very hackneyed hot mess if not executed carefully with a good story behind it. At least it would bring a different dynamic to the series.

“Bourne is a total cypher whose defining feature is that he runs, kills, improvises, says relatively little, and has no enduring emotional-relational connection to anyone except Marie and, to a lesser extent, Pamela Landy. He’s practically a serial killer. ”

I disagree We are shown his character traits rather than being thrown in the face through exposition. We are visually told who he is and it is totally believable and actually quite interesting. And him trying to get a handle on his past is what I like to think what makes him, especially through Damons performance, less of the generic action hero and someone that is actually despite being an assassin ( we never really see him before the amnesia) quite likeable and maybe not relatable but someone you can understand. Being handsome has nothing to do with it.

I never understood what Cross was doing, except escaping certain death from the program that he was in being shutdown. I never felt he had the emotional content of Bourne that is all. I do remember the pills and the addiction, now that you mention it. But it never stuck with me, like most of the film. But, yes, the drug addiction may be slightly different than dloing Jason Bourne 2.0. I agree with that. I just don´t care for Cross as much.

The reason Bourne has very little emotional connection is because he is struggling with his past and try to comprehend being someone who has done pretty bad things. Not a very easy thing to be around perhaps and I don´t know I would have probably distanced myself if I knew I had the killer inside of me. I don´t know. Also the reason I find Bourne more compelling is he is so clearly defined. And it was very well established in the first movie. LEGACY is not an entirely bad movie. I enjoyed it quite a bit. But Cross was never as memorable protagonist. Pills or no pills.

He is no serial killer. Would you actually compare him to Bundy? or Buffalo Bill? Come on…

Hey, Shoot, I think you make some good points. I was definitely engaging in hyperbole with the serial killer thing. I find Bourne to be an interesting character, and I really dug the conceit that his amnesia has somehow reset his empathy back to some previous point before (as we learn in Bourne 3) he elected to join the Treadstone program. The idea that he is starting at ground zero as a basically earnest, well-intentioned kid only to discover that he has been complicit in acting as a government-funded sociopath. That is a compelling concept, and it really does get to fundamental ideas about identity, memory, etc.

My only point was that, as far as characterization and emotional resonance, I found the Cross character and Renner’s performance to be every bit as compelling as Bourne, just that Renner is not as immediately identifiable and likable as Bourne’s boy next door. I find Cross a little edgier. He’s presented from the beginning as someone who question’s the wisdom of the Outcome program, whose struggling with addiction and a fear of losing his gifts. Although he has the same combat skills and tactical judgment as Bourne, but there is an emotional volatility and rebellious streak about Cross that makes him a more unstable, unpredictable personality than the overcontrolled Bourne. I was exaggerating my characterization of Bourne just to press the issue that I think that Renner and Cross and his arc are underappreciated and bring something truly new to the series but without it feeling hackneyed or overdone.

That seems fair enough. Cross is not Jason Bourne. And it was good to see they went a different route and to see perhaps the consequences of the research and the experiments with his character. He does seem a bit more vulnerable with his overreliance on the pills.

I can recommend the novel THE BOURNE LEGACY by Eric Van Lustbader. It is actually a lot of pulpy fun. It has a completely different story than the films. I think it is more based on Ludlums original books rather than the reintepreted movie franchise. I enjoyed it more than I thought I would. It´s not very good perhaps, but very entertaining.

I have never read any of the books and have been curious as to whether any of them are worth the read, since sometimes the source material is actually worse than the realized film (notwithstanding the whole “book is way better” cliche).